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Message: [QUOTE="JeffConn, post: 4514681, member: 11822"] This above is spot on. AJ appears to be a good team guy and inspirational leader for the team. Dan Hurley anointed him as one of the big three and his teammates appear to respond to his play and follow his lead. He is a floor general with Hawkins being the outside shooter and Sanogo being the inside scorer. But AJ is not a complete player, lacking reliable, consistent shooting for a 2, 3 or 4-man. And as others have pointed out, he does not drive all the way and finish at the basket to be a complete 1-man. He is a high energy guy that can do a lot of things (dribble in traffic, distribute and play aggressive defense), but he is a roll player, not a headliner offensively. Since the Villanova game, other teams have sagged off him and dared him to shoot; and he readily has taken the bait. That's when it seems like we're playing 4 on 5 (as someone else pointed out) with his Dan Hurley-like stubbornness to not change course with his continued chucking it up there; a self-destructive tendency in games that puts the team at a disadvantage. Some observers get intoxicated by his athleticism and overlook this. As others have pointed out, along with other game tactics, the coach is slow to react as well, not pulling AJ out sooner. Dan Hurley tends to stay longer with the starters and team leaders, perhaps trying to show them and the team his confidence in them. There was similar criticism about Taliek Brown, but it seemed that in his senior year (2003/04), he learned to play within himself, focusing on what he does best (as Jay Bilas would say "everything but shoot") and UConn with its headliners Okafor and Ben Gordon scoring and support from others, went on to win the big prize that year. So there's still hope for AJ and Hurley to learn and get UConn closer, if not all the way back, to the promised land. A lot of us compare these times to the fondly remembered glory years, but despite his early NCAA first and second round successes, it took JC time to figure things out and make it to a Final Four. I recall a lot of pain during big-time games along the way: the embarrassment at Kansas, the missed free throws against Florida, the Mississippi State game, the UCLA game, the blowout at Michigan State, the Maryland game, etc. It's somewhat unfair to compare Dan Hurley now at this stage in his major college coaching career to JC's complete body of work, a hall of fame career that doesn't come along that often! [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach